Beauty is an abstract concept which is connected to all aspects of life. What is considered to be beautiful is not seldomly dependant from the current ideals of beauty, which themselves are always related to Zeitgeist, culture, economy, politics, values, traditions and many more influences on the environment of every person. Adolescents find themselves amidst all these influences. Everywhere we can see young people putting their values and personal success in relation to their own correspondance with the current ideal of beauty. Since as a teacher I deal with people of that age every day, I see an urgent need to take up this topic in school.
This paper documents the school-project and reflects the attempt to enable students to develop an idea of the relativity of ideals of beauty and of how these ideals are embedded in cultural values. It raises the question of how to gain distance to ones own concept of ideals of beauty and offers a tryout to enable students to deal with it autonomously and - as a consequence - artistically.
This school-project has been developed at a Middleschool in Kuppenheim, Germany with a 9th grade. The research and artistic statements have been documented by the students themselves as posters, sculptures, drawings, photography and other media. A public presentation has been realized as well.
These efforts follow the aim to help students to become communicative, tolerant and emancipated citizens and according to that contributes to the development of the students´ personalities.